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Wireless router?
I may need to buy a new one after I move... I'm looking for something that won't have it's signal killed by all the other wireless signals in my condo building, and preferably something with a printer hookup option. Any recommendations on a good N router that fits that description?
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Generally, with a bit of price, you can buy some reliability, and reduction in dropped connections and packet loss. Folks generally seem to like the Buffalo Nfiniti WZR-AG300NH and the D-Link RangeBooster N 650 DIR-655 while the big losers tend to be Zyxel and Belkin in review sites.
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Do those have printer sharing?
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Printer sharing can be easily done through XP or Vista (and I'm sure other OS's), regardless of what router you have, as long as your computers are properly networked and the printer is hooked up to one of the computers. Also, to avoid signal interference, experiment by using different channels to see which one has the least interference.
XP Printer sharing Vista Printer sharing |
If your printer has an ethernet port or has built-in wi-fi, pretty much any router will work with it. All you'd have to do is make sure you have it properly connected and make sure it has an IP address on your router and you're set. Here's a simple little tutorial to help with that pesky network and port setup.
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Most consumer grade wireless routers do not have print server capabilities.
However, many printers these days have built in network connection capabilities that do most of the work for you(like Enceph said). Just connect the printer to the router with an ethernet cable. If that's not the case with your printer, you can easily buy a small print server for around $50, though at that price you might as well just upgrade to a newer printer with built-in networking. Also, if you are in an area where there are lots of wireless signals, and you are concerned about channel congestion, you can easily just change the channel the router uses. Most people who set up their routers fail to do any testing to determine which channels are already used in their area, so their bandwidth gets killed. From my experience, most routers default to channel 6 or 11. When you set up your router, try to assign it a channel that is the least used. Finally, I really don't think its necessary to get a Wireless-N router, as its available bandwidth will far exceed anything you will get from your ISP, and using it really won't solve any channel congestion problems from other routers in your area. The basic Linksys WRT54G2 should more than meet your needs. |
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